Walking Tour

WALKING TOUR OF THE UNION BAY NATURAL AREA

Introduction
It is the night before your big exam, and you're frantically studying your notes and flashcards about plant species and bird calls and all sorts of topics about the natural environment. You've been drinking coffee all night but for some reason your eyes feel heavy. You decide to rest down your head for just a little bit....

Your eyes fly open to bright sunlight and you hear bird calls in the air. You realize your cheek is pressed to some gravel and you lift up your head. You are in a deserted parking lot that looks unfamiliar.

Oh, crap, you think to yourself, I've sleep-walked again. You wonder if you've missed your exam, but you can't tell what time it is, and your phone isn't on you. There's a trail up ahead of you though, and you decide that you should probably see if it leads to somewhere you know.

Station 1: Birds

Ugh, great, you mutter, as you trudge up the gravel path. Nothing looks familiar and you really have no idea where you are.

Cheerily! Cheer up! Cheerily! Cheer up! a voice says.

"No, I won't. I don't want to." you say, but the voice interrupts you and repeats itself. It seems to be coming from above, so you take a peek.

"Oh," you say. It's a bird with a rusty-orange breast and a white circle around its eye- an American Robin, and it's sitting in an Alder tree.

American Crow

You become aware of another robin from across parking lot, and a third to your left. They both join in in the chorus. Cheerily! Cheer up! Cheerily! they say.

You are exasperated by their optimism and try to tell them that you have to go. They keep interrupting you though, and an American crow that flies past laughs roughly at you. Cahw-cahw! His black silhouette disappears disappears from sight as he flies away to join his flock.

Finally, you decide to just leave, and when you turn around, you see that they are still chattering amongst each other, completely unaware that you have left. You wonder for how long they will continue this song, and hope they will get hungry soon so they'll have to take a break to hunt for earthworms. After all, it is the season.

Station 2: Species Interactions

Yellow-faced bumble bee on Nootka Rose

Soon you come across a fork in the road. You decide to take the right-hand trail and find yourself in an area of busy bees. Their bzzz's fill the air. Maybe they can tell you where you are.

One bee in particular looks like he knows what he is doing. He is large, heavy, furry and has yellow face.

"Excuse me, Mr. Yellow-faced bumble bee," you say, bending down towards the flower he is on. "Could you please tell me where I am?"

But he continues gathering nectar and pollen for himself and his colony, and ignores you completely. In fact, he also moves to another flower. You follow him there and try again. "Excuse me..." you trail off. He has moved to yet another flower again.

Honey bee on Himalayan Blackberry

You sigh. Maybe you will try a honey bee- they seem less self-important and more approachable, being smaller and skinnier than the bumble bee. You spot one on a Himalayan blackberry bush. The berries haven't grown yet, but he still seem to enjoy the white-petaled flowers.

You are just about to ask him when he flies off-just like the bumble bee! Argh.

Fine. You decide you might as well ask the plants then. They'll have to answer your question. After all, they can't run away from you.

So you ask the Nootka Rose bush. "Nootka Rose, can you tell me where I am?"

"Hello," she says. "I am Miss Nootka Rose! I am happy to be here, in bloom with my lovely, five-petaled flowers. They are a gorgeous pink and attract all the bees. My leaves are pinnately compound- aren't they beautiful, too? I think that even my red thorns are enticing! I'm so much prettier than Miss Himalayan Blackberry, aren't I? She's so...common-place. Quite vulgar, I must say!"

"Yes," you say, overwhelmed. "But can you tell me where I am?"

"No," she says, "Because I don't even know where I am-- all I know is that I am being pollinated by the bees and I'll reproduce wherever they go. That's all that matters!"

"Well, you must have some idea of where we are," you say. You are getting impatient with the organisms you've encountered here.

"I live in areas of low to mid elevation, near the sides of roads and shrub prairies," she says in a sing-song-y voice. "And that's all I'll tell you!"

"I have to go," you say. You feel like she might break into a musical, and you don't have time for that right now.

"Goodbye!" she sings out as you head down the path.

Station 3: Plants

Quaking Aspen leaves

You find yourself among some trees, but you don't bother asking them. The encounter you had with Miss Nootka Rose was just too much. You wish you could ask some humans for help. Maybe they'd have more straightforward answers than you. If you had your phone, you could call a rescue team to get you out of this area. You imagine the conversation going something like this:

DISPATCHER: Emergency rescue services.

YOU: Hello, I am lost in the wilderness and I need help getting back to my apartment! I may have missed a final exam too.

DISPATCHER: Okay, that sounds important. I’ll send out a rescue team right away.

YOU: Great! Thank you, sir.

Black cottonwood (http://woodbrooknativeplantnursery.
com/plants/info/populus_trichocarpa/)

DISPATCHER: No problem. But tell me, what do you see around you? This will help narrow down some of the places you might be at.

YOU: Well, I’m in Seattle still, I’m pretty sure.

DISPATCHER: Okay, great. Can you describe some of the vegetation in your immediate surroundings?

YOU: Sure. I’m on a trail and to my left, I see some trees. I’m not sure what they are, so let me describe them for you. The leaves tremble in the breeze and they look like fat, round hearts. They’re darker on the top and lighter on the underside.

DISPATCHER: Great! That sounds like a Quaking aspen. What else do you see around you?

Twinberry

YOU: There's another tree that also has heart-shaped to ovate-shaped leaves. They are shiny on top and dull on the underside. And there's some sort of cotton-y looking stuff on it. It looks like it has seeds in it. Hey, that's pretty a effective wind dispersal technique, isn't it?
DISPATCHER: Yes! That's what black cottonwoods do best! Anything else?
YOU: I see a cute bush next to me. It has little black berries in pairs with red petals enveloping them. The leaves are opposite.
DISPATCHER: Sounds like twinberry to me! Those red petals might actually be brackets, if that's the case. You know, I think I know where you could be! You're at....

Unfortunately you don’t have your phone with you, so this conversation isn’t possible. You sigh and continue walking down the path.

Station 4: Choice (General observations)
You are approaching a prairie-like area and you can start to see swallows in the air. They look like little insects from far away, but really they're probably the ones catching the insects.


The grasses look like an ocean, which is cool, but you wish you had a grass boat you could sail with. Then maybe you'd be able to navigate back to your apartment. You look closely at a section of the grass and notice purple panicles in it. The leaves are rough. Looks like it's Reed Canary Grass.

But enough dilly-dallying. You start moving again.

When you come out of the grasses you are near some cattails. Must be a marsh nearby, you think. Then you hear something.

I seeeee you!

You turn around.

I seeeee you! It repeats again.

“I wasn’t trying to hide in the first place,” you say to the air.

Conklaree! it says.

Red-winged blackbird

“Sorry?” you say. You are not sure you heard right, but then you see a bird sitting in a nearby Oregon Ash. He is black and has red epaulets on its shoulders. There is a little bit of yellow under the red too. A red-winged blackbird! His beak is up in the air and is perched up high in the tree. It looks like he is on the lookout and defending his territory. It does seem like pretty good territory--broad-leaved cattail habitat and lots of resources for food and nest-building, all great things to attract females. If you were him, you'd probably be wary of a human too- competition is everywhere!

On the other hand, more male red-winged blackbirds in the area mean more mating and resource (food) opportunities for the females, so maybe it's not always a bad thing for everyone...




Station 5: Geology

As you take a turn in the trail, you see water. It looks like the Union Bay area of Lake Washington, but you're not sure. If it is, you know that Lake Union is to the west and Lake Washington is to the east. Lake Union is smaller than Lake Washington, and Lake Washington is almost 22 miles in length. Both lakes were carved by glaciers melting and moving in north-south directions. As a result, the landscape around, like drumlins (thin hills formed from glacial ice sheets moving across sediment) and lakes are carved north-south. Of course, all this happened 17,000 or so years ago so you weren't there to witness it. But it's still cool to think about. The area was under about 3000 feet of snow and ice—the Cordilleran Ice Sheet—and the land got compressed under all that weight. It slowly bounced back up, decompressing over centuries. Various parts of the ice sheet lobe that carved out Puget Sound also created lakes, like Lake Russell.

Hm, that’s interesting, you think. How did I know all that? Maybe you just absorbed it from the natural landscape itself. But anyhow, you think, if it is the Union Bay Natural Area maybe you’ll see trash around. It used to be a landfill for the Seattle area, but was restored to its former ecology in the 1960’s. You hope there won’t be anything leaking out from the ground, but who knows? In a way, it’s cool that the waste underneath the area has shaped the geology of the place too. The grass now covers ugly lumps of waste and turns the landscape into smooth, little hills with fields, with areas of cover, and with little ponds. You keep on walking.

Station 6: Invertebrates

Oh man, you think. When does this trail end? You decide to sit by another pond and flop down onto the ground to take a rest. Oops, bad idea. You've just pressed your cheek into some mud. Ugh, you think, but then some movement catches your eye. An ant! She is on a stick and is a red-ish color. Being an ant, she is clearly part of the Hymenoptera order. You watch her for a while, and she crawls down from the stick and decides to crawl onto a blade of grass. After that, she doesn't do very much, so you transfer your attention to another nearby clump of grass.

Ant

Damselfly

There you see a blue damselfly. She flits about the grass, not going very far before hovering or landing over another blade of grass. For some reason, you start to question your identification skills and wonder if she's actually maybe a dragonfly. After all they are both in the Odonata order. But this ones' eyes are separated, and its body is long and thin. Both are traits of damelflies. Dragonflies on the other hand would have eyes that touch, and stockier bodies. Okay, you think. Maybe my ID-ing skills aren't that bad!*

Yellow-faced bumble bee

Then you see something that surprises you. A yellow-faced bumble bee in the mud. He is crawling on top of a yellow leaf (pretty good camouflage!) and looks like he's injured maybe. You've never seen a bee do this before, and you wonder what's wrong with him. You think about asking, but you're still offended by the previous yellow-faced bumble bee that snubbed you by the Nootka rose bush. So you decide to just leave this one be.

Convergent lady beetle

You go back the grassier area and you see a Convergent lady beetle from the beetle order. A fourth invertebrate already- this grass is so full of life! This one, like most, is about a fourth of an inch long and has about five black spots on its rusty-orange body. Like the ant, she's crawling around grass, going from blade to blade. You smile at her and she stops and waves hello to you with her front leg.

*source: http://insects.about.com/od/identifyaninsect/a/dragonordamsel.htm

Station 7: Animal Behavior

Pond slider

You get up from the ground and continue following the trail. As you continue along the water, you see a clearing among the grasses and cattails and spot a turtle! He is sitting on a log with its head up in the air. As you step to take a closer look, you see that he's not just any turtle- he's a pond slider, or a Trachemys scripta in the emydidae family and Testudine order ! He has the dark green and yellow markings on its back, a small red mark on his head, and a yellow stomach (or plastron) that distinguish him from other turtles. You wonder what he's doing out there on the log because there's not much sun out to bask in. No other pond sliders are around either. Hm, you think. Well this pond slider must have somehow figured out that it was worth it to sit on the log...I wonder what kind of benefit he is getting from this. It's not too cold out so maybe he is warming up, or maybe he's waiting for food to come by on the log? Or perhaps he is looking or waiting for a mate. Although his inactivity seems a bit ineffective so far... You decide to ask.

"Mr. Pond Slider, what are you doing?" you say.
He doesn't answer.
Oh no, you think. Maybe he's not a pond slider. Maybe he's a painted turtle. The two species are often confused.
"Mr. Painted Turtle?" you ask, hesitantly. You hope you haven't offended him.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he shakes his head.
"Pond Slider, I mean," you blurt out.
He nods his head, once.
"Mr. Pond Slider," you repeat. Still nothing. You decide to try a different tactic. "How are you doing today?"
"Goooood," he says, drawing out the vowel.
"I'm glad to hear that," you reply.
"Byeeeeeee," he finishes.
"Oh," you say, disappointed. "Alright. It was nice meeting you, I guess."

So you leave. He isn't worth it, you console yourself. He probably reeks of salmonella, anyway.

Station 8: Ecological Disturbance

Black Cottonwood mini-grove

As you round another corner on the trail, you see a large clump of black cottonwood trees on your left. They have grown pretty tall. But when you near them, you see signs of an ecological disturbance. Gnawed tree trunks maybe within a foot or foot and a half from the ground, wood chips and splinters scattered around...this can only mean one thing: beavers. You are not sure if it was an American beaver or a Mountain beaver, but either way, someone has caused or is about to cause a disturbance here.

While neither tree has been felled, you can only imagine what would happen if one did fall. It would maybe crash to the ground and block the trail, or maybe if it fell the other way it would take down other trees with it. If it stayed there, the wood would eventually be decomposed by fungi (the only organisms in the world that can digest lignin) or go through fragmentation by physical weathering processes. This would create more habitat niches for organisms like invertebrates that like to burrow in wood and that in the process of doing so, fragment it further. Although you are not sure if black cottonwood is easily decomposed, you think it could maybe turn into a nurse log if it were in a setting more suited to nurse logs. Mainly you are thinking about old growth forests, which this area is not.

Caught on camera! Evidence of beaver activity

To some degree though, a felled tree could still affect the plant life around it in, since smaller, previously shaded plants would become exposed to more sunlight and would have better access to resources like water.

Station 9: Lichen

Oakmoss lichen

You have been walking for a few minutes when you realize that you are back in the grasses. Not much else is around, except for some trees, and some lichen on them. Hey, maybe you can ask the lichen for help. After all, lichen are known to grow everywhere and in practically any environmental condition! They must have a good sense of direction and place in order to do that, right?

"Hey, Lichen," you say to the Oakmoss lichen on an apple tree branch. You are getting tired of going through the formalities and still getting no proper response.

Shield lichen

"Yo, what's up," they shoot back.
You're surprised but glad that at least someone's responding. "Hey, so I'm in a bit of a dilemma," you say, and proceed to explain your situation.
"No problem, dude," they say. "Being lost is definitely no joke. Luckily we, fungi and blue-green algae, don't have to deal with that much since we just stay here all our lives, apart from our spores. It's pretty chill here, hanging out on twigs and branches and being all fruticose. But anyway, we won't keep you any longer. We'll have you talk to our cousins, Shield lichen over there. They'll know the way out."

Yellow scale

"Thanks, man!" you say and head off toward the flat, almost algae-looking stuff on a nearby tree. It is foliose, light green, and has edges like the edges of snowflake. "Shield lichen," you say when you're within their hearing range. "Your cousins told me that you guys know how to get out of this place, which I think is the Union Bay Natural Area?"
"For sure, man," they reply. "Although you know, we're not sure what this place is called. We just live here and don't worry too much about those sorts of details. But we will tell you that you can just follow my cousins, yellow scale, or xanthoria parietina, and they'll take you right out of this place. They're yellow-orange and small and have little cup-like features on them. Some of them are over there on that birch. See them?"
"Yup," you say, and wave goodbye to your new, helpful friends.
"Good luck!"Shield lichen calls out.

On your way out, you pass the yellow scale and give them a high-five. "See you around!"

Station 10: Land-use History

The start and end of the trail
and your arduous journey!

You come around the corner and realize you are right back where you started. Looks like the trail was a loop, after all. You shake you head to yourself, and in doing so notice an informational sign at the trailhead that you didn't see before. It reads "Union Bay Natural Area." Oh man, you say, giving yourself grief. You were right. And it looks like it the sign has a map on it too. You walk closer to check it out and see some pictures and text. The text says that this area was a city dump for more than 40 years. Hm, well you already knew that. But what you didn't know what that trucks used to dispose of items as often as 100 times per day; the waste of which was unregulated.  In 1966 though, the dumping was stopped when people decided to try to restore the area. They capped the trash with clay and soil and restoration projects have taken place on the land ever since*.

UBNA sign

The place seems to have recovered pretty well, and you can imagine it being popular with environmentally-inclined people. You saw so many types of birds and plants and other organisms just now, there must be at least some naturalists who know about the place. And joggers too-- you can imagine people looping around a few times for a short and easy run. In fact, up ahead of you it looks like there's a large group of people heading your way. They are carrying binoculars and scopes.

"Jorge!" you hear one of them call out. "Look at that bird!" The group flocks around a scope that one of them sets up.

You laugh, shake your head, and start heading back to campus to take your exam. Oh, those birders, you smile to yourself.

:) FIN

*Sources:
http://birdweb.org/birdweb/site/seattle_-_union_bay_natural_area_(montlake_fill)/3
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=10182

Sources:
For more on various organisms native to the Pacific Northwest, consult:

Alden, Peter et al. National Audubon Society: Field Guide to the Pacific Northwest. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. Print

For more on insects, consult:
Hadley, Debbie. Insects. About.com. n.d. Web. 10 Jun 2014. <http://insects.about.com/od/identifyaninsect/a/dragonordamsel.htm>

For more on the history of UBNA and its human uses, consult:

Sidles, Connie.  Bird Web. Seattle Audubon Society. n.d. Web. 10 Jun 2014. <http://birdweb.org/birdweb/site/seattle_-_union_bay_natural_area_(montlake_fill)/3>

Caldbick, John. Union Bay Natural Area (Seattle). 02 Jan 2013. Web. 10 jun 2014.  <http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=10182>

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